


Everything Goes to Hell Anyway

by dirigibleplumbing



Category: 1872 (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Secret Wars Battleworlds
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blacksmith Tony Stark, But he'll use whatever means necessary to do what he thinks he has to, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Folk Music, Getting Together, Irish Steve Rogers, M/M, Magic, Minor References to Period-Typical Homophobia, Minor References to Period-Typical Homophobic Laws, Sheriff Steve Rogers, Singing, Temporary Character Death, The Darkhold (Marvel), Tony Stark Hates Magic, Underworld, Weird West, Which is then fixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/pseuds/dirigibleplumbing
Summary: A visitor to Timely is killed, and Tony is the main suspect. Steve has no doubt of Tony’s innocence, but more strangers still are in town looking for a mysterious book, and Mayor Fisk’s boys are up to no good. It isn't long before everything goes to hell.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 42
Kudos: 78
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).



> (Updated January 18, 2020 to fix some typos, add or remove a sentence here or there, and add a few paragraphs in one spot.) 
> 
> Happy holidays, navaan! I’ve combined a couple of your prompts. I loved all of them, it was hard to choose! But the more I thought about supernatural forces in Timely, the more I came up with ideas on how to turn it into a canon fix-it. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Readers unfamiliar with 1872 should be able to follow the story just fine. 
> 
> This story approaches Timely as part of a (relatively) normal Marvel Earth, not a domain of Battleworld. Doom is just a 19th-century Doom, not God Emperor Doom. 
> 
> I fudged the dates of a few real-life occurrences and usage of certain terms, just like canon did (for one thing, “Danny Boy” wasn’t written until the 1910s). If it's technology, assume Tony invented it early. For everything else, a wizard did it. Likewise, I’ve referred to Fisk’s place only as the casino (as it is on the map in every issue, though panels show it as “Fisk’s saloon”) so that the saloons frequented in this story are clearly unaffiliated with Fisk.
> 
> The Wong in this is, for plot purposes, more like MCU Wong than 616 Wong. 
> 
> A map of Timely and environs for your reference. ([embiggen](https://66.media.tumblr.com/013df1c6880081e35fc94ce737205a1b/02531c666e0e26d6-a8/s1280x1920/e511b81ca75d4756bbd9087aaff9ab985348ed0f.jpg))  
> [](https://66.media.tumblr.com/013df1c6880081e35fc94ce737205a1b/02531c666e0e26d6-a8/s2048x3072/731b8b7778ac31bf5f2def09ee4f8a345da62a36.jpg)

Some days, if Steve finishes his work early enough in the day, he can catch Stark before he's sloshed. 

Today it’s nearing evening when Steve’s done. He stops by the dram shop and Stark is full as a tick. He sings through hiccups and guffaws as Steve walks him back to his forge. When they reach it, Stark lets himself in, still singing, giving no sign he even knows Steve is there. 

Maybe tomorrow, Stark won't be roostered when Steve finds him. 

* * *

Outside of cattle season, Timely’s small enough that Steve can, for the most part, keep track of who comes and goes by train. This morning there’s some of Danny Rand’s family, a couple legal associates of Murdoch’s, and new hands for Black Bolt Ranch. The trains also bring the usual bevy of businessmen and travelers, there to stay the night at the hotel before the next train out to Antelope Wells or Deming. 

Another newcomer is in town, too, though no one can quite say which train he came in on. His clothes certainly don’t look like they’ve been worn while traveling or packed into a bag; he wears a white waistcoat, jacket, cravat, trousers, and even shiny white boots, not a speck of sand or road dust to be seen about his person. The trousers, waistcoat, and jacket are embroidered in what Steve might call a plaid if it were in any colors other than ivory and cream on white. When Steve stares at it for too long, it looks like it’s moving. 

The visitor in white catches Steve watching him and stops, meeting Steve’s gaze with a three-by-nine smile and an arched eyebrow. 

A curse from the direction of Veteran’s Hall steals Steve’s attention; it’s Clive Straughan who’s airing his lungs, and from the sound of it, Daisy’s gone and stamped off one of her shoes again. 

When Steve turns back, the finefied man in white is gone. 

Steve and Straughan walk Daisy over to Stark’s so she can be shod. They don’t need Steve’s help getting there, but Clive doesn’t comment and seems to enjoy the company. Maybe between him and Stark, they can convince Clive to get all new shoes instead of just resetting the loose one. Straughan's always riding in and out of Oak Creek and having her shod by the farrier there, who doesn't fit his shoes properly. She’d do much better with all four shoes of good quality and hammered in by someone who’s actually up to trap with a hammer and forge—and at that, Stark’s fine as cream gravy. 

Daisy’s a good horse, though her face is more like a donkey's than a horse's. She’s a Kentucky Saddler, as are many of the horses in town. Steve’s own, Apple, is a Morgan, and pretty as a speckled pup. He rode one just like her in the war. 

“Hello there,” Stark says when they arrive. His eyes twinkle and are, for now, unclouded by drink. 

“Daisy here’s thrown a shoe,” Steve says. 

Stark smiles. “Then I’m your huckleberry, Sheriff.” 

* * *

The first time Steve met him, it was early in the morning, and Stark was out and out sober. 

He can’t help but wonder sometimes what it would have been like if they’d met in the evening, when Stark was deep into his cups and barely able to keep himself upright. 

If there’s some other version of himself who first saw Stark when he was stumbling out of a saloon singing like a burro with a bad cold, Steve doesn’t know whether to pity him or envy him. 

* * *

If Steve’s any judge, Stark’s just under one bottle of whiskey into his evening when Steve takes a seat beside him at the bar. Neppie Gallentine sits at Stark’s other shoulder, laughing and preening. 

“Oh Sheriff,” she says melodically, “have you heard Mister Stark’s yarn about the roller-skates?” 

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.” 

“Tony, you have to tell him! It starts out at a croquet game, see, but—oh, you’ll tell it better.” 

Stark begins the story. He talks with his hands, and his hands talk with his whole arms. Steve can't help but notice how often Stark turns and grins at Neppie.  
  
The longer he tells the story, the further Stark loses himself in it. He becomes a clucking wild turkey, then the carriage that it had just flown into, then a dog swimming through a pond. By the time roller-skates finally make an appearance, Steve’s laughing so hard there’s tears coming out of his eyes. 

* * *

“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously, Mister Stark.” 

Stark tilts his head as if thinking. “You know,” he says slowly, “I don’t think I am.” His slurring sounds like an affectation, though Steve's not sure how much he can attribute that thought to Stark's cleverness and how much to his own wishful thinking. 

The man facing Stark is another visitor, one Steve noticed two days before and hadn’t expected to see again after the following day's train out of town. He’s an ordinary enough fellow, in fine black clothes only a little rumpled and besprinkled with sand. Right now, he looks mad enough to bite himself. “This is nothing to joke about,” he hisses. 

Steve steps up to them. “Evenin’.” He nods at Stark, then turns to the stranger. “Anythin’ I can help you with? Mister….”

The man straightens up and frowns at Steve. Probably he's realized that he and Stark have been having their row in the middle of the street and happened upon by the town sheriff. “Honton,” he replies. 

“There a problem, Mister Honton?” Steve asks. 

“Nuthin’ to concern yourself with, Sheriff,” Stark says. 

“Well, Mister Honton? Is it anything to concern myself with?” 

Honton’s eyes flick quick-as-a-wink to Stark before he says, “Just a friendly disagreement between old friends..” 

“Of course. You enjoy your evenin’, then." 

Taking this for the cue it is, Honton clears his throat and stalks away. 

“An’ what were you old pals discussin’, then?”

Stark takes a pull from his flask. “This and that.” 

“You lemme know if you need a hand, y’hear?” 

This catch’s Stark attention. His eyes search Steve’s face with an intensity Steve doesn’t know what to make of. Then he smiles wide as the Mississippi. “You bet,” he assures Steve, toasting him with his flask before taking another pull and walking away. 

* * *

Stark’s got two empty bottles of whiskey in front of him, and a half-drunk one in his hand when Steve walks inside. The batwing doors swivel closed behind him and he takes stock of the saloon. Neppie isn’t among the dancers tonight. The other men are at the poker tables, playing or watching. Stark’s alone at the bar with his bottles. 

Stark's been worse since Bucky died. Steve’s not sure why, since he didn’t think they’d even met more than a handful of times. Still, it’s been a month at least since Steve saw him drink this much. 

Steve stifles a sigh and approaches the bar. 

Stark catches Steve’s eyes in the mirror and lets his hands, which have been holding his head up, drop to opposite elbows. He lets his head fall into the bar, his arms catching his forehead. “Can’t’cha let me alone for one night?” 

“Nah,” Steve says. 

Stark doesn’t move beyond his shoulders shifting with each breath. The barkeep, Thurlow Nodding, comes by and Steve asks for some water, rye bread, salted herring, and a beer for himself. 

The mirror over the bar is twelve feet long if it’s an inch, all one pane of glass. Nodding said it’d come from New York down through the Panama Canal, to San Francisco, to Carson City, by boat, cart, burro, and carried by hand, all to get to Timely. The men in town don't like to drink or gamble anyplace they can't see who's coming in the door. It was Nodding's largest expense in setting up his business, but paid for itself in a matter of months. 

Steve watches himself and Stark in the mirror, the picture they make: Stark spilling himself into a puddle, Steve loading himself into the chamber of a gun. 

Sitting here makes Steve think of a lithograph he saw once of a piece by a French painter: a weary barmaid and girl of the line standing at a bar, her back reflected in a gilded mirror behind her. She’s the most solid person in the piece, her rich patrons relegated to a jumbled blur. They’re in front of her, the focus of her attention and work, but the painting renders them insubstantial and relegated to a reflection invisible to her. The marble surface of the bar extends off the page in front of her; only behind her does it come to a finite end, as if the task before her is unbounded, any termination nothing but an illusory impression. 

The bar portrayed is far more elegant than this one, and its wealthy clientele wear their fine suits and top hats in the way Steve imagines Stark once did—the way he did in woodcut newspaper illustrations, more than a decade ago now. The painting's centerpiece is not these men but the woman serving them, a tired working girl probably as poor as Steve, her gaze turned blank and glassy by monotony rather than drink. At the same time, the composition frames the viewer as one of these well-heeled men, a voyeur to her body and her labor. Looking at the print had made Steve feel both utterly isolated and kindred with her. 

Stark and himself are the patrons here, but they are no Parisian dandies, and the bar itself is, at the moment, unattended. They are neither the wealthy customers nor the tired worker. Still, something in this moment is the same as the one portrayed in the painting. 

Most of an hour passes before Stark stirs. He pushes himself upright, his eyes falling on the glass of water. He puzzles at it for a moment before he notices Steve beside him. “Didn’t have to sit here doin’ nuthin’ like that,” he says, taking a chunk of buttered bread. He gobbles it down without getting a crumb in his mustache, though his fingers are greasy with butter. He licks them clean. 

Steve shrugs. “I know I didn’t.” 

* * *

The fella in the white suit is still in town a fortnight later. He has two other strangers with. One's got bone-white hair and a bottle-green suit with alligator hide boots. The other should look the most usual, in his black suit and bowler hat, but he catches the light wrong. He sits not quite right in the world, like turpentine trying to mix with water. The three of them take up a whole poker table on their own. They each have more cards in their hands than Steve’s ever seen allowed in a game of poker. He wonders what game they're playing. 

No one is standing over their game making side bets, though plenty are crowded round the other tables. 

Steve eats his corned beef sandwich and glances at them in the mirror. The fella in white catches Steve’s eye in the reflection and winks. 

* * *

Stark’s splashed out on the porch of his forge, out too late or up too early. Honton stands a foot away, hollering loud enough to shake rain out of a clear sky. 

Stark pulls himself upright by feeling along the case of his fortune-telling automaton. He leans against it for a moment, letting it support his weight, before steadying onto his feet. Honton continues yelling. Stark brushes dirt off his trousers and heads toward his front door, Honton turning with him to keep shouting. 

“A good evenin’ to you, Mister Honton,” Steve catches Stark saying, before he tucks himself inside and closes the door after him. 

Without letting up from his hullabaloo, Honton tugs at the handle. It doesn’t budge. 

He stops trying it after he catches sight of Steve. Steve meets his eyes placidly. 

Mister Honton walks off in the direction of the hotel. 

* * *

The three strange men keep popping up around town. Steve’s seen them more than once in each of the town's saloons, playing their cards and dice, and three times again at the hotel. He’s caught them going in or out of Fisk’s casino twice that over again. 

And for all that, Steve’s sure he’s never glimpsed them with a single morsel of food. 

* * *

Honton’s cornered Stark at the hotel bar this time; Honton screeching like a banshee, Stark hissing and spitting in a voice too low for Steve to hear. He’s only on his second tumbler of the night, though it’s been full dark out for near an hour. Honton’s lucky to have caught him so early into his now-nightly drinking routine. Then Steve remembers how pretty a tale Stark tells even three sheets to the wind, the clever words that spill out of his mouth even when he’s down to only a handful of his wits, and thinks perhaps Honton’s not so lucky after all. 

“You’ll regret that, Stark,” Honton promises before stomping off toward his room. 

Stark grins. “Probably,” he agrees, and walks out of the hotel before Steve can catch him. 

In one corner of the room, the man in the fancified white suit shuffles a deck that’s tall as a pint glass. He deals out an abundance of cards to each of them, and his stack’s barely half-gone. Whatever game they’re playing, it’s not according to Hoyle. The fella in green sets down the ace of hearts and the ace of diamonds. The man in black puts out a pair of aces too, and either the light’s playing tricks on Steve’s eyes or they’re both red, too. The one in white plays his cards next: another pair of red aces. 

An hour later, Worley Honton is dead. He’s in a heap, bleeding slowly into the rug in his hotel room, a hole blown straight through him. It’s charred black round the edges and the skin blushing round that, like a gunshot wound, except that this bullet would’ve had to’ve been the size of a dinnerplate. Steve can see through it to the flowers tufted into the rug beneath. 

Tony Stark, the most advanced manufacturer of guns and weapons on the continent, one of the only men in the world who could make a device capable of such a thing, is crouched beside him, blood drying on his fingertips, shaking. 

“Sheriff,” he says weakly. “Would you believe this isn’t what it looks like?” 

“Ya gotta ask?” 

* * *

Steve doesn’t know if Stark's ever been in the sheriff’s office sober. Or as close to it as he gets these days; if Steve swallowed that much liquor, he’d wake up still drunk. 

“You're gonna have to tell me what you were arguin’ about,” Steve says, not for the first time. 

“I believe you’ll find that I don’t.” 

“Stop actin’ like you dunno dung from wild honey and fess up. I’m gonna help you, ain’t I?” 

“So you keep saying.” 

“Is it worse than bein’ hung for murder?” 

Stark snorts. 

“C’mon. How’d you know him? You work together?” 

“No,” Stark sighs. He scrubs the heel of his hand against his eyes. “I was engaged to his sister.” 

“Oh,” Steve says. He shoves his reaction aside, packs it away into the root cellar for winter, and waits for Stark to keep talking. 

“I broke it off,” Stark continues, staring at his hands, “because it all’d gone to blazes. It was the only thing I could do. Hell, she wanted me to.” 

Steve doesn’t ask why. He sits and waits and stares a bit at Stark's hands himself. 

“It was the liquor,” Stark says. “But it wasn’t only that. Worley, ah. Honton, that is. He saw me with a fella. Bit of a compromisin’ position.” 

That’s not what Steve thought he'd hear. He swallows and wishes, not for the first time, that Stark would give up his bottles. Stark seems to be holding his breath. 

“Honton was tryin’ to blackmail you.” 

Stark nods, face still downcast toward his hands. 

“I thought Neppie was your cup of tea.” 

Stark glances up with a frown. “I tell you I’m a molly and that’s all you gotta say?” 

“Guess so.” 

“Ya don’t think, a man could do sumthin' like that, he’s a step away from a murderer already?” 

Steve shrugs. “Don’t see as how one follows the other.” 

“I didn’t kill him.” 

“I know you didn’t.” 

“Dunno how you know it.” 

“That’s why we’ll find evidence o’ who did.” 

Stark smiles, turning one half of his mustache up like the hand of a clock. “Is that what we’re doing?” 

“You got a better idea?” 

“S’pose I don’t.” 

* * *

Ben Urich is alone in the newsroom when Steve walks in, watching him warily. As well he should; if anyone should be speaking up about Mayor Fisk and Governor Roxxon, it's a newspaperman. That's not what Steve's here for this time, though. 

“Don’t worry, I ain’t here to talk about what you won’t print. Thought I’d ask about sumthin' you have, this time.” 

Urich's spectacles have a smudge of printing ink on one lens, obscuring his leery expression. “And what’s that?” 

“ _The Timely Bulletin_ ’s been printin’ this classified for a missing book for more’n a fortnight. Who’s payin’ for it?” 

“Ah, and here I hoped I’d have an easy answer for you this time,” Urich says, restless eyes finally landing on his typewriter. “I don’t know.” 

“You're runnin’ it for free?” 

Urich looks up sharply at that. “Not at all. I get money and directions in the mail.” 

“And you dunno who sends ‘em.” 

“Wish I could tell you more.” 

Steve squints. “How’re they supposed to come ‘n get their book if it turns up?” 

“They haven’t said,” Urich replies with a shrug. “So long as they keep sending money, I can’t say it troubles me overmuch.” 

“Anyone come in sayin’ they know where it is or anything about it?” 

Urich writes him a list. It’s not a long one. 

* * *

“You ever met the man that settled this valley, Sheriff?” 

“Can’t say as I have.” 

“Well, this has his name written all over it.” 

Missus Knight speaks plainly and keeps Steve’s eye the whole while, barely glancing down at her sewing. Her stitches are quick and even, unhampered by her false arm. 

“You ask that Mister Wong,” she continues. “He know’s what the fuss is about. There’s this book, s’posed to be sumthin’ special. Wong’s heard it’s here in Timely.” 

“Don’t seem like the sorta thing that’d be in Timely,” Steve notes. 

“Sure don’t,” Missus Knight agrees. In altogether another tone of voice, she says, “You see Mister Stark, you tell ‘im I’ve made some improvements to the arm.” She taps at her mechanical prosthetic with her flesh hand. “Off you go now, Sheriff. I don’t want any of that trouble showing its face here, nor the rumors we’ll be hearin’ about if you’re seen goin’ in and out of my home on your lonesome.” 

* * *

Steve hasn’t seen the three strangers since the night Honton died. He doesn’t think for a minute that they’re gone, though. 

* * *

“No such thing as magic,” Stark says, casting a long look toward a bottle of whiskey sitting on a shelf among horseshoes and a metal helmet. 

“Well, folks think the book is magic, anyhow.” 

“And Worley had it? If it’s worth that much, he needn’t've come all this way an’ try an’ get money offa me.” 

Steve shakes his head. “Nah, Honton didn’t know this book from the rear end of a horse. Someone thought he did, though.” 

“And who’d want a cursed thing like what you're tellin’ me about?” 

“More’n you’d think, I reckon.” 

“Never saw the appeal, myself.” 

“Well, you don’ need a devil’s bargain to spin your own gold.” 

Stark's expression sharpens. “Don’ need ‘im to make my own hellfire, neither.” 

“Can’t fool me,” Steve says easily. “Brimstone’s just some hot iron an’ rotten eggs.” 

“Don’t need a book from Hell to make that,” Stark agrees. 

“Mister Wong says this book’s turned hale and hearty men into pale, cold things as can’t stand the sunlight or swallow anythin’ that ain’t human blood.” 

“Maybe it’s a creature like that that got Mister Honton.” 

“Seen stranger things in this valley than that, I reckon.” 

“That right?” Stark's eyes return to the bottle of whiskey. “Dunno as I’ve seen much here I ain’t seen a thousand times over.” 

“And what’s that?” 

“People hurtin’ other people 'cause they can. 'Cause they think it's fun. That it means they're powerful.” 

“Is that all you’ve seen here?” 

“Well. Maybe it ain’t.” 

* * *

“Not even the dancing girls’ve heard a peep ‘bout any magic book.” 

“You talk to a lotta dancing girls, Stark?” 

“S’pose so. Talked to a lotta people. People don’t care much what they say in front of the town spooney.” 

“You ain’t the town spooney,” Steve says sharply. 

“Nice o’ you to say, Sheriff,” Stark replies, and slings back a pull of his flask as if to illustrate his point. “Who would it be then, I wonder?” he muses, scratching at the shadow of stubble on his chin. 

“Some of the folks you talked to must've seen sumthin’.”

“Sure, they seen sumthin’ alright.” Stark laughs, bitter as quinine. “Get a drink or five into a fella, an’ he’ll tell ya all about the demons n' hellfire n' all kinds of portents he’s seen.”

“People say all kinds of things, don't mean they ain't seen nothin'.”

“An’ waddya s’pose they’ve seen that's got 'em talkin’ like that, then?

“Don't rightly know,” Steve replies, rage simmering in the back of his mind and near fit to boiling over. “But we'll find out.”

“You enjoy yourself then, Sheriff.”

And there goes Steve’s anger, the lid blown clean off. “Just gonna give up then, are you?” 

“What's to give up? The sheriff hasn’t put me in hoosegow and Fisk won't bother to hang me. Don't matter much if half the town thinks I'm a killer.”

“What about the man who _is_?”

“He's nothin' to do with me. I ain’t got any magic book. An’ ain’t you got plenty on your table with Fisk and his band of executioners?” 

“They’re layin’ low.” 

“Won’t last long.” 

“No,” Steve says, animosity leaking out of him like flour from a burst sack. “I don’t expect it will.” 

* * *

Determined to, at least once, find him before he’s corned, Steve lets himself into Stark’s forge before noon. He seems a bit down with barrel fever, but he’s upright and working when Steve comes inside. 

“What can I do fer you, Sheriff?” 

“The coffee grinder at the general store’s broken,” Steve says, setting it down beside a bar of iron and an empty whisky bottle. The grinder is some newfangled contraption of Stark’s, run off wires and magnets and conductivity. 

“S’that right?” Stark asks, setting aside his tools and wiping his hands on his trousers. “Wasn’t broken when I was there to get my Arbuckle’s this mornin’.”

“Must’ve just broke,” Steve insists. 

“Mm-hm.” Stark doesn’t look like he believes that for a second, but he fiddles at the casing with some tools until it pops open. “How’s the wild goose chase, then?” he asks, peering at the wires inside. 

“Nuthin’ new.” 

“Nuthin’, huh?” Stark has, to Steve’s eye, already taken the whole thing apart and laid the lengths of wire out in neat rows on his worktable. 

Steve saunters up and rests a hip on the table. “Nuthin’.” 

“Only here as a favor to Mister Kellerman, are you?” 

“He said he’d slip some extra molasses into my next order.” 

“Just carried it out here ‘cause of molasses, huh,” Stark says, barely looking as he reassembles the contraption's innards. “That a fact?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Well, there y’go,” Stark declares, shutting the device back up again. “Shall we test it?” Without waiting for a reply he gets to his feet, bustling upstairs and then back down again with a sack of roasted beans. 

When he returns, he sidles right up beside Steve. Their arms brush as he pours in the beans and flicks the switch. The machine works smooth as a hot knife through butter. 

Steve says so, and when Stark turns to smile at him their faces are close enough for Steve to count his eyelashes. A familiar strain twists in his chest, catching his breath. It’s not the first time Steve’s thought of leaning in and planting a kiss on Stark's mouth, but it's the first time he’s thought Stark might have the same idea. 

Stark breaks their gaze, turning and scooping up a tumbler of booze. He tosses it back and smacks his lips. 

“That all, Sheriff?” 

* * *

Steve knows that any news he's going to get about Honton, the three strangers, or Fisk's boys is bound to be lousy. He wonders which will cause the most trouble, in the end. 

For now, he's impatient. If a storm's brewing, he wishes it would blow in already. 

* * *

“You got nuthin’ better to do than drink yourself to death, Stark?” 

“Not so far as I can see. Whole town reckons I’m a murderer.” Stark leans forward, stage-whispering into Steve’s ear, “Even Neppie won’t be seen with me.” 

Stark's breath smells like molten metal and a backyard distillery. “Heard the town sheriff don’t mind, though.” Steve replies. 

“Well, won't be long now before the town comes out with pitchforks begging 'im to arrest me. And that sheriff, he’s a strange bird. Some kinda freethinker, I hear. Wants that first amendment stuck to—and all the other ones, too. Thinks women oughta get the vote, even.” 

“Sounds like a real stick-in-the-mud.” 

“Got a backward sorta charm, though.” 

“I’ll take your word on it.” 

“You’d better. Lotta people say I’ve got more’n just hair under my hat.” 

Steve doesn't point out that Stark's not wearing one. “We’ll figure out who really done it, Stark. Just a matter of time.” 

“Don’t see as how there’s anythin’ left to figure out. That dark book of spells ‘n curses is ‘bout as real as the fortunes my busted contraption don’t spit out no more.” Stark tosses back a full tumbler of whiskey and signals to Nodding for another. “A man was arguin’ with Worley Honton in public time and again. In the very hotel where Honton was stayin’, even out in the middle of the street. Next thing, Honton’s lookin’ like target practice for a twenny-inch heavy cannon, an’ the only other fella on the whole floor of rooms is the one that’d been hollerin’ at ‘im.” 

“Think addlin’ the brains you got under that hat gonna help with that?” 

Stark swallows another glass and waves Nodding down for a refill. “Not gonna hurt.”

“You refusin’ to lemme save your life, we’re gonna have some words.”

“Not refusin’, just takin’ a step back, is all.” 

“Just gonna give way and let yourself get strung up, is that it?” Steve asks, furious. “‘N what about those who’ll come to prefer that to seein’ you souse yourself like you’re brinin’ a pickle?” 

“It’s all gonna go bad anyway, and it don’t need my interferin’ to do it,” Stark replies, not noticing or not minding Steve’s rage. “Keepin’ to myself might even keep me outta trouble.” 

Steve fights to keep his voice even. “It gonna keep you from singing the whole town down like the walls of Jericho?” 

“Don’t pretend you don’t love my singin’ voice, Sheriff. What’ll I serenade you with tonight? How ‘bout ‘Down in the Valley’?”

“How ‘bout you let me get a wink of goddamn rest and you work on savin’ your own hide, then,” Steve says, but his heart isn’t in it. His anger’s fled from him. 

“I’ll find the right song for you yet, Sheriff,” Stark promises. 

* * *

“I think you pulled enough corks fer today, Stark. It ain’t even noon.”

Without turning from his drink, Stark says, "Oh, why, hello there, Sheriff. I guess you have nuthin’ better to do but infringe on my constitutional right to pursue happiness." 

Before Steve can answer, the doors to the saloon swing open. "Sheriff!" 

Stark takes another sip. "Uh-oh. Duty calls?" 

“Gimme a moment, Mister Urich,” Steve says. He doesn’t want to leave Stark to himself in this state. 

Ignoring him, Urich runs up to the bar. “A boy came by _The_ _Bulletin_ with a tip that there's to be another lynching.”

Steve pushes himself off the bar to his feet. “Let me guess: Fisk's boys.”

“Out at the dam,” Urich elaborates. 

“Damn that dam,” Stark mutters. 

“Don't mock me, Stark!” Steve snaps over his shoulder. “I'm trying to save lives.” 

He thinks he sees Stark’s eyes land on the ‘64 Stark Rifle hanging above the bar before he takes another swig. 

After that, it all goes to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Lyrics to "Down in the Valley"](https://genius.com/Pete-seeger-down-in-the-valley-lyrics). 
> 
> The painting Steve saw a reproduction of is Édouard Manet's _A Bar at the Folies-Bergère_ , which in our reality wasn't shown until 1882. Guess Manet painted it earlier on Earth-51920! 
> 
> **Roostered** – Drunk  
>  **Fine as cream gravy** – Very good, top notch  
>  **Dram shop** – A small drinking establishment  
>  **Three-by-nine smile** – A laugh or smile to the full extent on the jaws  
>  **Finefied** – Made fine, dandified  
>  **According to Hoyle** – Correct, by the book. “Hoyle” is a dictionary of rules for card playing games  
>  **Molly** \- One of the more polite words for a queer man in the late 19th century  
>  **Spooney** \- A drunk  
>  **Corned** \- Drunk  
>  **Arbuckle’s** – Slang for coffee, taken from a popular brand of the time


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next four sections retell a good chunk of canon from Tony’s point of view. I’ve included almost all of his canon dialogue because it sets up later parts of the story. The canon major character death is not described in any detail. (And this story will fix it.)
> 
> If you know 1872 by heart or have read it recently, I won’t be offended if you skim until you get to the non-canon bits.

Rogers comes back to town with the man who they say tried to blow up Roxxon’s dam; seems he’s found someone else’s life to save. Tony drinks his whiskey and tries to leave well enough alone. He almost manages it, too, until he sees a band of Fisk’s boys heading for the sheriff’s station, Turk leading the way; four on one just isn’t sporting. Tony knows he’s not much of a wheel-horse these days, and lord knows Rogers deserves better than Tony when he’s loaded to the gunwales, but it’s what he’s getting tonight. 

Getting to his feet is easier than he’d expected. Affecting a drunken shamble toward Rogers' window is even easier. “Oh, Danny boy!” he calls. 

“Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling!” 

Tony’s starting to regret his choice of song, but there’s no gentleman’s guide for how to act once you’ve told your friend and local law enforcement you’re a sodomite. Before he can get to _Oh, Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so!_ Turk’s revolver is at his temple. And whaddya know, it has Tony’s name on it. 

Rogers is there in the twinkling of a bed-post and he knocks Turk down with one slog, which is quite a sight. “Where are—”

“Behind you!” 

If that sockdolager was affecting, the time it takes Rogers to draw, turn around, and blast the man who’d been slinking up with his piece in hand is something else again. Tony doesn't think it's just because his brain isn't moving very fast at the moment. 

“Now would be a good time to skin that piece I know you've got up your sleeve,” Rogers tells him.

“I can't argue with that,” Tony agrees. “But since you last saw it, I've made some modifications. Which I now regret.” He pops the spring on his wrist piece and lifts out his flask. Happily, it’s full. 

His enjoyment is interrupted by the sound of boots and shots heading toward them. “Four more!” he shouts. 

" _Two_ more,” Rogers corrects. “Just get inside!" 

They don’t stop running even once they’re inside Tony’s forge. “Arm yourself, Stark! That's an order.”

Tony takes a sip from his flask. “I melted my guns down.” There’s a bucket of water by the back door, which he gives it a good kick. Water spills over the floor. “I promised myself I'd die before I picked up another gun.” 

“Rogers—” a voice starts from the front, before it’s cut off by a thundering shot and the sound of a man falling to the floor with a groan. 

“Stark—watch the back door!” Rogers shouts. 

As if on cue, it opens onto the last of Fisk’s boys. “Guess what, drunk?” 

“You thinkin’ about conductivity?” Tony wonders, a bundle of wires already in his fist. He crouches until the ends meet the puddle of water, which lights up with a buzz that knocks the man flat on his face. 

“I'll be damned.” He examines the frayed ends of the wire. “Wusn't sure that'd work.” 

“Go wake the doc in case any of these men still have a pulse,” Rogers orders, reloading his gun and turning back to the street. “I'm gonna go cuff—” But Turk’s gotten up, seemingly under his own steam, and Rogers barrels off after him. 

When Tony comes back with Banner, the four fellas are hanging by their wrists from the porch of Fisk’s casino. 

Tony tucks himself into his forge with his coffin varnish and calls it a night. 

* * *

Tony dreams of a valley strewn with corpses. A massacre. Of a handful of men, meant to be fighting for freedom, mowing down hundreds of their brothers in a matter of minutes. Stark Repeating Rifles that don’t stop firing, even after the ground is nothing but blood and ruined bodies. He dreams of Union soldiers holding their fingers on the trigger and never letting go, firing endless rounds, until there’s more lead in the air than oxygen. He’s perched on a hill above, wanting a drink more than he has in his life up until then. It’s a want he hasn’t shaken; it might be the only thing he knows how to want any more. 

He’s roused by the sound of voices and gunfire, echoes of his dream and too-bright memories. He fights consciousness as long as he can. Rogers' voice is the first thing he can make out when he wholly wakes. 

“Everyone in Timely, come on out!” Rogers shouts. “We can take back our government right now! For too long, we've looked away as Roxxon, Fisk, and his assassins have forced us to live in terror! Come out of your houses! Come and demand to live free! Come out and say ‘no’ to the land-grabbing, come out and say ‘enough’ to the water-stealing!”

With great effort, Tony sits up, wondering if he can stand. 

Rogers is still calling out to the whole town. “Throw off the dual yokes of tyranny and corruption! Take back Timely with me! Don't be afraid to claim the streets and demand to live in a free land!”

There are more voices, too muffled to be clear. Tony finds his feet. He can stand, as it turns out, though he knows his own forge well enough to tell that his vision’s still doubled. 

Another gunshot rings out. It sounds like Rogers' gun, or one like it. 

He’s nearly to the door. A voice he knows he should recognize says, “I'm glad you called everyone out, Rogers, so you can say goodbye.”

The next shot fired isn't from Steve’s gun. 

Tony’s dragoon revolver is in his hands before he can remember where he'd put it. “No!” 

He comes out shooting, but not a single bullet lands. It’s the governor’s men, and Lester right there gloating over—god, no—Steve’s body. Lester’s standing close enough that if he were a snake, Tony could bite him. 

“Mister Stark!” Lester smiles. “What a surprise to see you ambulatory! If your vision’s blurry, aim for the handsome devil you see in the middle.” 

Before he can fire again, a crowd of women comes between Tony and Lester. Missus Danvers, Missus Knight, Missus Wilson, Missus Williams, Missus Storm. The town widows. 

“There’s been enough bloodshed today!” Carol Danvers says, blocking him entirely. 

The others press in closer and push him toward his door. “Let me go!” 

“They will kill you, too!” Danvers says, like he doesn’t know that. 

Lester laughs. “You may call on my any time to conclude our business, Mister Stark!” 

“I’ll take this,” Lyja Storm says, snatching his revolver. 

They don’t understand. “We let him die in the street! We're all damned!” he yells, even as he's pushed inside. 

* * *

Tony gives up on using a glass and drinks straight from the bottle. 

It’s not lost on him that a man says he’s about to fire a slug when he’s fixing to drink a dram. 

He’s laid out his front porch with his second bottle when a white-haired man steps onto it in bare feet. Tony’s sure the old man is someone he knows, someone from town, maybe, who he’s walked past every day for years. He’s also sure he’s never met the man before.

"Yer wastin’ yer time,” Tony tells him as he slides a coin into Tony’s fortune-telling machine. “It’s busted." 

“Indeed there is something broken here,” the man says, “but not your automaton.”

The bulb inside the apparatus lights up, though the filament long since burned out. “Here is your 'vision of the future' courtesy of the world's greatest inventor—Tony Stark!” says a little wax cylinder on a turntable, followed by the sound of the machine spitting out a slip of paper. 

“How the hell…” Tony looks up at his contraption and the paper it shouldn't be able to produce. Behind him, the man is walking away. “Hey, mister, don't you want your fortune?" 

“That fortune is for you, Mister Stark.” 

Tony tears it off the roll on its perforated edge. He reads it. It’s not one of the fortunes he’d had printed. 

A laugh punches out of him and doesn’t stop. Each laugh he bursts into is a blow to his chest. 

His laughter batters him until he folds over and sobs. 

When he’s cried out, he kicks open the door of his forge, tosses the bottle onto his anvil, and smashes it to smithereens before it has time to roll away. 

He looks at the dead-blow hammer in his hand, at the whiskey climbing down hand and hammer both. 

Tony gets to work. 

* * *

He works through the night, into the next day, and then all day through. The sun is down by the time the armor’s functional; Tony’s not sure how long it has been, having not noticed it setting. Now that his hammering’s done, he can hear a hubbub of voices, blows, and shattering glass. 

Tony’s inside the suit and nearly has all the parts locked in when the distant commotion becomes much closer. 

“I hate this town,” he hears a man growl. “I been shot, punched, beat, and now burned.” 

“Stark!” someone cries. It’s Red Wolf, and from the sound of it, he’s practically at Tony’s front door. “Stark, are you there?” 

“You people like carving canoes, right? I'm 'bout to make one outta the top of yer head.”

Tony activates the armor. It comes to life in a deafening hiss and an aurora of electric-blue light. “Red Wolf? Duck.” 

The Iron Man steps out with an inferno detonating from the flamethrower on his arm. 

Grizzly’s dropped his gun. “Now, hey, wait a minute,” he begs. “God doomit—wait!” 

Tony doesn’t. He socks Grizzly in the jaw through a cloud of flame. When the man falls, Tony crouches down to shield Red Wolf from a hail of bullets. 

“Stark? What the hell are you wearing?” 

Tony could ask Red Wolf the same question, though he doesn’t; Steve’s star suits him. “My coffin.” 

They get to their feet; Tony sees Lester on the ground in front of the casino, a bullet in his forehead. There are plenty of other gunmen still standing, though, barrels pointed at them both. 

“Where’s Banner?” Tony asks. 

Red Wolf stands at his back, firing a revolver. “He wanted to blow up the casino.” 

“That was my idea!” 

“It is a terrible idea!” 

A man on a horse gets close enough Tony can hear the mount's breath. Tony punches the man off his saddle. 

“I’m bringing Fisk to justice,” Red Wolf says, sounding so like Steve it hurts. “Banner and Natasha are blowing up the dam and saving my people.” 

* * *

The fighting and shooting crawls on into dawn. A fair few men are happy to accept Fisk’s promises of money in return for killing Tony and Red Wolf, though they’re outnumbered by the widows with their rocks and pitchforks. 

Tony accidentally socks a horse in the face. He _knew_ he made the eye-slits too small. At least the poor creature landed on its rider. 

Red Wolf breaks off to find Fisk. The armor keeps Tony upright while he holds off the others, hungover and exhausted as he is. He hasn’t had enough water, or food for that matter, in recent days, and the heat of the armor has parched what little moisture’s left in his mouth. 

When he sees an arsenic-green cloud rising over the dam, Tony entertains the idea that he and Red Wolf might live through the day. Though he suspects Bruce and Missus Barnes haven’t. 

That’s what he thinks, anyway, until the latter gallops in and shoots Fisk in the head. 

There are cheers. People dancing and embracing. Celebratory shots fired into the air. Couples kissing. Folk are already calling Red Wolf “Sheriff.” 

Tony waits for the afterclaps. 

* * *

Tony’s trying to do what’s right. 

Mostly, this consists of doing what he thinks Steve would do. Or, put more plainly, acting by hook and by crook to accomplish what he thinks Steve would want done, even if it’s a bit twistical. He’s never been too sure Steve’s way was the best one, though Steve sure as a gun thought his was the only good and just way. Tony misses the rows they used to have—the speculative ones about right and wrong, anyhow. 

In this case, he’s trying to exonerate himself of involvement in Honton's murder. Not because anyone in town seems to care or even remember, but because that kind of civism was important to Steve—and perhaps a bit because Tony can’t abide an unanswered question. Steve would’ve done it proper, being the law and all, but Red Wolf's got enough on his plate, especially with Mister Osborn going missing. Tony can find out who’s responsible on his own. 

He picks up where he and Steve left off: talking to people who might have seen or heard something. He speaks with Missus Knight, Miss Jones, and young Rick Jones (no relation), who know a few things about that accursed book. The next evening Tony walks into Nodding's saloon and smiles at Neppie. She smiles back and flounces up to him, murderous rumors apparently forgotten. Good thing, too: she and the other dancers pick up more about Timely’s comings, goings, and goings-on than you can shake a stick at. They'll know more than anyone else what's happened since the night Red Wolf was almost killed. They point him in the direction of one Thornton Tillard. 

When Tony knocks on the door of the man’s hotel room, though, it swings open, unlatched, and rather than Tillard, a toff in all white is ransacking a chest of drawers. Tony doesn’t need a second look at the swell’s shiny albino gator boots to know he’s one of the fellas Steve had told him to keep an eye on. 

“Dreadful sorry, I seem to have the wrong room,” Tony says. 

The fella in white stands and turns to face him, not bothering to hide that he’s tossing the room. “Are you a friend of Mister Tillard's?” 

“Haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting him,” Tony replies, winsome as he can, holding the man’s gaze with his own. “Do you know when he’ll be in?” 

“You’re the one who came in right after that Honton fellow died,” the man observes.

“Just what I’d hoped to speak to Mister Tillard about. Are you an acquaintance of Mister Honton’s, as well?” 

“We had pursuits in common.” 

“Yes, I think I saw you and your associates hanging around the night he died. Unfortunate you weren't able to conclude your business. Might I ask what those pursuits are? I could be interested in a stake.” It’s only because Tony is himself trying not to blink that he notices the other man hasn’t. 

“My associates?” 

“The two fellas you’ve been around town with, one all in green, the other dressed less distinctively in black.” 

“Mugwort and Slovenwood.” 

“Pardon?” 

“Those are the names of my associates.” 

“Ah,” Tony replies, for lack of anything better. “And yourself? What name do you go by?” 

“Wormseed.” 

“Well Mister Wormseed, as an interested party, financially speaking, what endeavors did you and Mister Honton have in common?” 

Wormseed tilts his head, reminding Tony of a barn cat watching a mouse. “I’m in your charming town to find a certain book. It was stolen from me, you see, and when I heard tell that it was in Timely, my associates, as you call them, accompanied me here to retrieve it. Do you know where my book is, Mister Stark?” 

“Can’t say that I do, I’m afraid.” 

“Do let me know if that changes,” Wormseed says mildly. 

Tony still hasn’t caught the man blinking. “I’m sure I will,” Tony replies at last, and, taking Wormseed’s words as a dismissal, takes his leave. 

* * *

After their conversation, Tony takes to following Wormseed around town. It doesn’t take a bloodhound to sniff out that something’s awry about the man and his associates.

Tony learns that magic is real two days into this endeavor—eight days, four hours, and twelve minutes after Steve's death. He’s been counting. He could pin the blame for this on his improper affections toward Steve, and for once he’d like to, but in fact the onus lies entirely with the fact that the sound of that gunshot also marked the moment Tony swore to himself that he'd become a teetotaler. 

Tony's made a lot of promises to himself lately. 

He’s hiding out in the crowded, dusty mess of Pym’s Hardware, having caught Wormseed heading in the direction of the narrow lane between the train station and the backside of the town center. It’s dark enough in the abandoned shop, and bright enough outside, that Tony holds some hope that he won’t be seen. 

Wormseed is getting into a rip-snorting row with old Virgle Groslin, a trader in fine and unusual goods who’s in and out of Timely every fortnight with new trinkets to peddle. They’re getting into it, Virgle raising a ruckus and Wormseed holding himself stiller than molasses in January. 

Sudden as a grasshopper’s jump, Virgle’s hollering goes quiet. Light flickers from his chest, like he’s got a gas lamp where his heart’s supposed to be—and then it ignites into flame. Quick as it was lit, it snuffs out again, and Virgle crumples to the ground, a hole in his chest bigger than a prize pumpkin. Blood oozes out of him like an afterthought. 

Wormseed grins like a weasel in a henhouse. 

Magic is real, and Tony hates it. 

He wishes he knew a magic incantation to let him trade places with the Tony Stark who'd drunk himself unconscious the night before Steve died. A sober Tony Stark might've gotten himself between Steve and Lester's bullet. The drunk one would be standing here now, in what's left of Pym's shop, taking in the sight of Virgle’s bloody, charred body through a haze of whiskey and rapidly fading consciousness. 

If there is such a spell, though, Tony doesn’t know it, so he skedaddles right on out of there instead. 

* * *

Wong’s in Chinatown when Tony finds him, talking with a man selling hot rice from a cart. When he catches sight of Tony, Wong drags him by the shoulder into a narrow alley in the thicket of tents and shanties. “You here about that book, Stark?” 

“Afraid so,” Tony replies. 

Wong frowns and surveys Tony from toe to tail, no doubt taking in his combed hair and neatly tied cravat. Finally he nods and leads Tony toward his home, a proper wooden house on the main stretch of road. He offers tea once they’re inside, and Tony accepts so he’ll have something to do with his hands. 

“I don’t suppose I can talk you out of whatever foolhardy scheme you’re cooking.” 

“Not a chance,” Tony replies. The tea is jasmine, and better than he would’ve thought would be available this far west. 

Wong plucks a book from a crowded shelf. His house has more books than the town library, more even than Tony’d once had in the halls of his New York City mansion. The tome Wong sets on the table between them looks ordinary enough, to Tony’s eye. “I’ll give it to you,” Wong says slowly, “only because I don’t want it in here a moment longer.” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s not a quiet book. It can be quite charming, even. And I’m near enough charmed to open it myself.” 

“You haven’t opened it? Not so much as a peek at the endpapers?” Tony lifts his eyebrows. “How can you be sure it’s genuine?” 

“Because a forgery won’t whisper in my ear every time I walk past it,” Wong replies sharply. “That is the Shiatra Book of the Damned, and anyone who looks at its pages will know its language and lose their soul to its will.” 

“Of course,” Tony says, tipping his teacup across the table as if this is an ordinary reply. Jessica Jones had called it the Book of Sins, though it doesn’t look big enough to hold all of Tony’s. 

“The demons seeking it wish to open a gateway to hell. They may have already done so.” 

“Whatever for?” 

“To gain power over mankind, for themselves and their masters. To reap souls. To swallow them into the maw of a hellmouth.” 

“Don't see why they'd need a special book for that. Most of us are well on our way already.” 

“Stark,” Wong says sharply. “You must not open this book. To do so is to imperil your very soul. It will call to you, but you must not give in.” 

Tony wonders what Wong thinks Tony’s going to do with it, if not use it, but he’s a practiced liar and offers plausible deniability by saying, “I’ve had plenty of practice resisting temptation since I left off the hooch.” 

“Have you ever met the man who settled this valley, Mister Stark?” 

“Not had the pleasure.” 

“If you ever do, I hope it is not while you have this book in your possession. He has a power greater and darker than my own, one to rival even the evil contained in these pages. If there is an earthly man capable of using this book without being consumed by it, it is he. He would have a power no man should wield, and him least of all.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tony promises. 

* * *

Tony manages an entire luncheon with Missus Danvers without mentioning the Book of Sins, though it remains a presence in his mind as sure as it’s tucked into his waistcoat. It’s lodged there, in his thoughts, like a splinter of iron burrowed too deep in the skin to extract. 

Social commitments seen to for the day, Tony makes for his forge. A fierce and noisome wind sends the buildings creaking and signs rattling. He’s grateful he hasn’t taken to wearing a hat again, as he’d have lost it several times over in the last minute alone. 

The book is warm even through the fabric of his clothes, warmer even than standing in the bright noonday sun. Forgetting it’s there is hard to do with its heat drumming against his breast. 

When Tony reaches his forge, Wormseed is there, leaning on the outside door. 

“You don’t look like you need iron shoes hammered into your hooves,” Tony observes, wondering how fast he can get in his armor if he has to. 

Last autumn, Jim Rhodes came and spent a fortnight in Timely. They’d gone to a market a train stop away and Rhodey’d brought back one of those big jumpin’ jack pumpkins. It’d sat in front of Tony’s forge long after Rhodey returned to his steamship, until it began to grow soft and rotten. The thing folded in on itself, a wide crease curving up like a smile. 

The grin Wormseed gives is as wide, noxious, and sour as the fold in that corroded pumpkin. “On this occasion, there’s another matter you may assist me with.” 

“Might I?” Tony wonders. He doesn’t carry his wrist piece anymore, but he has a knife up his sleeve instead. It’s warm in his palm; not fever-hot like the book, but familiar and solid, like a river rock left on a sunny windowsill. 

The noxious grin vanishes. “You may hand over the book, or you will die.” 

“Don’t think I will,” Tony replies, still walking toward him. Hell if he’ll let some tenderfoot stop him from going in his own front door. Around them, the wind stirs up scrub and dirt in its hurry through town. 

“You think your sheriff friend would approve of you laying claim to another man’s property?” 

The knife is not a large one, and quite narrow, but it’s sharper than obsidian and it’s pressed against Wormseed’s neck before the sentence is all the way out of his mouth. “You care to repeat that?” Tony hisses. 

Wormseed’s eyes are light blue, like they’ve been left out in the sun too long and all the color has faded out of them. They lock on Tony’s now and Wormseed says, “You think your sheriff friend—” 

A good man wouldn’t kill an unarmed one. But Tony’s not a good man, and his only regret is that when he lodges that knife into the hollow spot where the fella’s jaw ends is that he’s done it on his own front porch, in broad daylight and plain view of the whole town. 

Tony pulls the knife out and steps back, but instead of a mess of blood pouring all down Wormseed’s white clothes like water from a broken dam, what he sees is an overripe smile, pale eyes, and a pristine white suit unmoved by wind. 

“See you soon,” the infernal creature says with a wink, and then there’s nothing but vapor and the smell of sulfur where something shaped like a man had been standing 

* * *

Tony doesn’t hear a peep about him stabbing a stranger in the neck, nor anything about a man vanishing quick as a wellspring in a desert. Not even from the Parker boy, who’s been poking around just across the way in Banner’s shop. 

The news that reaches him instead, courtesy of _The Timely Bulletin_ , is that Virgle Groslin’s body washed up the night before on the banks of the Kirby River, crawling all over with dragonfly nymphs. 

* * *

Tony stops in at the saloon now and then to chat with the ladies of the line, or sometimes to buy a general treat for all company present and eat the free lunch that comes with a man’s first drink order of the day. Thurlow’s good enough to take his money and fill glasses with water without comment. 

Each time Tony visits, Mugwort and Slovenwood are sitting at a poker table. Night after night they come to the saloon and the hotel to play their cards in silence; they’d probably be sitting in the casino, too, if it hadn’t gotten itself burned down nigh on a week ago. They don’t say a word when they catch sight of him, but the way they look at him is enough to set his stomach churning. 

No one’s wanted to claim Steve's horse, Apple, so a fortnight after her owner’s passing, Tony does everyone a favor and rides her out toward the mountains, the Book of Sins packed into his saddlebag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A note on the Stark Repeating Rifles:**  
>  There were “repeating rifles” prior to the Civil War, which fire shots one at a time. The "repeating" part was that you got to load more than one round at a time. The weapons shown in the flashback in the comic look, to my utterly inexpert eye, like fully automatic firearms (machine guns). Both keep firing as long as the trigger is held. This would have been far ahead of its time (the first submachine gun was invented in 1918). The closest thing there was in 1872 was a gatling gun, which was something in-between a machine gun and a small canon. They were first used in 1862, the year the Stark Repeating Rifles are shown first being used, so I imagine in this universe Richard Gatling didn't bother. 
> 
> If you know stuff about guns, I welcome polite corrections. 
> 
> I imagined the Mrs. Williams mentioned briefly to be Riri’s mom, no relation to Simon, who in 1872 is a bad dude working for Governor Roxxon. 
> 
> ["Danny Boy" info and lyrics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Boy).  
> 
> 
> **Wheel-Horse** – An intimate friend, one’s right hand man  
>  **Curly Wolf** – Real tough guy, dangerous man  
>  **Bed-post** – A moment, an instant, jiffy  
>  **Slog** – A blow, a fight with the fists  
>  **Sockdolager** – A powerful punch or blow  
>  **Coffin Varnish** – Whiskey  
>  **Afterclaps** – Unexpected happenings after an event is supposed to be over  
>  **Twistical** – Tortuous, unfair, not quite moral  
>  **Civism** – Love of country, patriotism  
>  **Toff** – A dandy, a swell, one who dresses well  
>  **Rip-snortin’** – An impressive person or thing  
>  **Skedaddle** – Scurry away or run like hell, get, leave, go


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've taken some liberties with how Tony's armor might work. Don't think about it too hard.

Tony stops at the bank of the Kirby for some rest and repast. It’s quick work to get a fire started. His supper of beans, maize, and pork belly is accompanied by an apple he shares with Apple and a watery cup of coffee. He prefers his coffee to be strong enough to float a colt, but will be the first to admit he doesn’t know much about packing or preparing food and drink for an overnight journey.

Evening is on its way, but there’s light enough to work by. Tony pulls out the armor gauntlet he’s packed and spends a blissfully carefree while tinkering with the wires inside. He checks the main fuel canister, then the spares. They’re all full up, which is good news for all his plans except having a back that doesn’t ache from lugging the weight around. When the sun sets behind him, he takes out his hoofpick and cleans Apple’s hooves, not that she needs it. 

When he can put it off no longer, Tony retrieves the book from his bag. 

“Whaddya think, Apple?” he asks, absent-mindedly petting her haunch. 

Apple, of course, does not reply. 

For all that it seemed an ordinary book when Wong first set it in front of him, it sits wrong now in his hand. When he hefts it, it feels heavier than a book of its size ought to, yet it added no weight to his saddlebag at all. The binding that appeared to be common cowhide proves unsettling to touch, familiar and yet unlike any leather Tony can name. 

The longer he holds it in his bare hands, the surer he is that the book is breathing. It throbs minutely against his skin, the pages inflating and emptying like a bellows. He wonders if it’s readying itself to speak. 

“Alright, Stark,” he says to himself, “here it goes.” Addressing the book, he continues, “Now, I’ll let on I don’t quite know what it is you want. But I reckon we can come to an accord.” 

He tells himself it’s the evening chill that sets him to trembling. It could just as well be his hankering for a tipple. He’s already heading to hell, he tells himself. 

Tony opens the book. 

* * *

Doom Manor strikes Tony’s as both unfortunately and inaccurately named. It has more in common with French palaces and châteaus than even the grandest of the mansions and plantations he’s seen in the Americas. The roofline is all spires and pinnacles and too-tall chimneys. The facade is a patchwork of pointed arches, sharp cornices, and towers branching off of towers. It looks altogether as steep and sheer and formidable as the mountain face it’s built into. Tony can’t fathom how the supplies and manpower for its construction could—in the handful of years since the valley's settlement, in a valley so far from shipping hubs, big cities, or really any non-Native civilization at all—have been convened by any means short of sorcery. Since it’s magic he’s looking for, he takes the manor’s appearance as a sign he’s in the right place. 

The first thing Tony notices as he and Apple approach the massive wooden doors is that the intricate iron hinges are quite skilled work and he’d like to meet the smith that cast them. The second thing he notices is the tall, cloaked man standing in front of them. 

Tony dismounts and dons a charming smile. “Victor von Doom, I presume?” As he approaches, he sees that under his forest-green cloak, the man is sporting a full suit of plate armor. Well, Tony supposes he’s not one to judge such sartorial choices, these days. “I’m Tony Stark. I hear you’re the man that first settled this valley.” 

The silver mask nods. The voice that replies is deep and dark as the bottom of a well. “What brings you to my home, Stark?” 

“I understand there’s a book you’re interested in, and it so happens that I know where you can find it.” 

* * *

Tony’s been cooped up in the tallest tower of Doom Manor for nigh on three nights and he’s feeling not a small bit like he’s in a Mary Shelley novel or a fairy story about a prince turned into a horrible beast. At least Tony has, unlike the heroes of those stories, made his arcane bargain with full knowledge of the consequences.

He has the run of the place, from the grand ballroom with the stone-carved fountains to the stables where Apple is happily being kept, but there's little to do but sit and tinker and fuss in his rooms. His host is somewhere about as well, and they sit together for suppers at a table long enough for Jesus and all his disciples to sit along one side and still have plenty of room for their elbows. The few times Tony steps outside, it's to visit Apple. They share bites of her namesake and he brushes her down like a show horse. 

Victor keeps to himself, consumed by the book—or consuming it, is more like. He calls it the Darkhold, and the topic of its contents dominates his dinner conversation. It’s enough to put a man off his food, which is already easy enough to do to Tony since he quit the drink, but he makes himself eat the hearty stews and doughy, plump bread set before him. 

When Tony passes by the library where Victor has been holed up with the book, he thinks thoughts that don't belong to him. They sound enough like his own voice in his head to leave him with a nauseated feeling. _Come inside_ , it says. _Take the book for yourself._

 _No_ , Tony tells it. _Wait._

He takes to avoiding the library whenever possible. 

* * *

Victor waits for him in the sitting room closest to the stables, and Tony spares a moment’s gratitude that he didn't come out to talk while Tony was standing about in Apple’s stall, petting her mane and talking to her like she might answer back. There are bits of hay and horsehair all over his fine borrowed suit, not that Tony cares a continental. Victor is in his armor and cloak as always. Before him at the table, like a place setting for some bibliophagic soiree, is the Book of Sins. 

“Time to go, then?” Tony asks, sounding more collected than he is. 

“We’ll depart as soon as you’re ready,” Victor agrees, tracing one metal finger down the book’s spine. 

Tony checks his fuel canisters and packs his bag. He fills his flask with water, as well another he’d found in the kitchens. Fire and water, both tucked away in his pack. He snags some fresh apples and fluffy, white bread from the pantry on his way to the front gate. 

* * *

It takes no time at all to reach the Roxxon silver mines from Doom Manor, even on foot, except Tony and Victor don’t quite make it all the way there before they catch sight of three figures standing in their path. One is dressed head to toe in green, another in black, and the third, out in front, wears nothing but white. 

“Stand aside,” Victor commands. 

_Call for the book_ , says the voice in Tony's head. _It will come to you_. 

_Not yet_ , Tony tells it. 

“You have my book,” Wormseed says, ice in his voice. 

Victor stands so still his armor could be empty. “I have the Darkhold, yes. As you will see.” 

Wormseed sneers. “Not for long.” 

The air goes dry and staticky, like lighting has struck. Electric-blue ribbons of light swirl around Wormseed’s forearms. Victor mutters in the infernal language of the Darkhold, and before Wormseed can lift a finger, Victor is in motion and a fireball wide as a sequoia erupts from his metal palms. It swoops at his three opponents in a gust, enveloping them in flame, spewing slate-colored smoke as if from a coal furnace. 

No sooner does the inferno pour forth than Victor speaks again, voice low as perdition, and the ground quakes. The earth under their boots bucks like a hurricane deck. Tony nearly falls off his feet; even Victor exerts real effort to remain upright. The sand pulses outward in circles, the ripples knee-high if they’re an inch. 

“Go!” Victor yells. The flames are subsiding, the nebulous shadows within reconciling into the silhouettes of the three men. “Now, Stark!” 

Tony runs, the ground convulsing under his boots. He sprays flame from his gauntlet to keep the others at bay. It's not lost on him that what Doom has pulled from the abyss is just what those creatures want. 

* * *

A hellmouth, Tony discovers, is a helluva lot more than just a mouth. 

He takes deliberate steps through the ankle-high fur of a breathing, blinking creature that, to all appearances, is buried in the sand with only its face breaching the surface. That face reminds Tony more than anything of a dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel looking out from a lady’s purse—if said spaniel were the size of a stampede and had red instead of white around its corneas. The teeth, too, are uncanny, too high in number, stuffed together too tightly, and set in too many rows. One tier springs up behind the other, like once the first set of teeth was done coming out, a few other sets thought they’d join in, too. The nose, though, is a round, wet, black thing not at all unlike the kind found at the tip of a cattle dog’s snout. Lucky, the hound kept by the Barton clan, has a nose just like it, if a great deal smaller. 

As he approaches its gaping maw, Tony expects the smell of brimstone; what he gets instead is the odor of meat gone rancid and rotten, like half-digested tranklements that’ve been retched out the stomach of a sad old mongrel and left in the sun past high noon. The smell ebbs with each inhale the creature takes through its nose and swells again with every hot, moist exhale. 

He crosses the threshold where skin and fur give way to teeth and sinew and finds it in himself to be glad for the unending teeth, line after encircling line of them like rows of seats in a coliseum. After all, without them, he’d have nothing to hold onto as he climbed down the creature’s throat. 

* * *

Tony reaches solid ground after near an hourly of clambering down rows of teeth like rungs of a ladder. Well, solid it might be, but ground it is not; the surface under his feet, and in fact the walls of the cavern where he stands, are pink and wet and heave with the rhythm of a great, breathing beast. The undulation under his feet is not unlike the rocking of a boat, and this is what Tony imagines he is walking upon. 

The passages wind like a coiled spring. His surroundings are not pitch-black, though by rights they should be; he lost all sight of the sun some turns ago. Instead the not-quite-round tunnels are lit from no direction at all by a flickering glow, as if by a distant fire. 

Some turns later, he rounds a bend to the sight of a three-headed dog. The pup’s mouths are hanging open, panting, showing off their teeth. In other circumstances, Tony would call them a handsome dog indeed; with a thick, salt-and-pepper coat like a coyote, a curled, bushy tail, bright brown eyes, and wide, wolfish faces, the critter wouldn’t look out of place at the Westminster Dog Show. Other than the extra heads, of course. 

“Hello,” Tony says. “I reckon I know this part of the Orpheus story.” 

“You play the lyre?” ask all three heads, tilting their question toward him. 

“Can’t say I do. How’ll some singin’ do instead? More likely to keep you up all night than put you to sleep though, I’m told.” 

The heads straighten and drop their jaws into something like a smile. “Go on then.” 

So Tony sings:

 _I am a poor wayfarin' stranger  
_ _Travelin' through this world of woe  
_ _But there's no sickness, toil or danger  
_ _In that bright land to which I go  
_ _I know dark clouds will gather aroun' me  
_ _I know my way is rough an' steep  
_ _Yet beauteous fields lie just before me  
_ _Where at the last I'll soundly sleep  
_ _I'll soon be free from earthly trials  
_ _When I get home to that good land  
_ _I'll drop this cross of self-denial  
_ _In concert with my blood-washed hand_

* * *

The three-headed dog asleep behind him, Tony winds his way through spiraling tunnels. 

His way slopes ever on and ever down. The stench of fetid breath pervades, as does a growing sound Tony recognizes in seeping dread to be the huffing of hogs devouring raw flesh. 

It is something of a relief when, after the latest turn of the channel, he sees a steed blocking the way—though he knows it should be anything but. Behind it, the way branches, for the first time, into half-a-dozen paths. 

The creature is like a horse in most ways Tony can name; it has the shape of a horse, the size of one, the coat of one, even the dull, sweet face of a horse. The long tail swishing at phantom flies rivals that of the finest Arabian. 

Nonetheless he is sure that it is not, by any means, a horse.

“Halt,” says the not-horse. How it does so without looking absurd is anyone’s guess, but it manages. 

Tony obliges. “Good afternoon,” he replies. 

“You are alive,” the not-horse notes. 

“Presently, yes.” 

“Why?” 

“I’m here to find someone,” Tony says. “He’s not supposed to be here.” 

The not-horse peers at him. “You don’t know where he is.” 

“Not precisely, no. Do you?” 

“I know which path you might take to reach him.” 

“Wonderful. Might you tell me which one?” 

“I will not allow any living being to pass me, nor will I share what I know; not without receiving something in exchange.” 

“Well, what did you have in mind? Can’t be my soul, I’m afraid it’s already spoken for.” Tony tries not to shift under the scrutiny he receives upon saying this. He wonders if the not-horse knows he accidentally punched a thoroughbred in the face not long ago. “I hope it won’t offend if I offer you an apple; a friend of mine, who looks much like you, enjoys them immensely.” 

Something alights in the creature's eyes at the word _apple_. “I will accept an apple in return for allowing you to pass me. For my guidance, I require further payment.” 

“Do you enjoy salted herring, by chance?” 

The sniff Tony receives in reply is answer enough. 

“I don’t suppose you’re in need of a farrier?” 

* * *

The not-horse must’ve been walking through some thick and awful mud to get their hooves in the state Tony finds them in. The creature isn’t shod—and there’s a picture, an infernal farrier—and their frogs are as full and healthy as Tony expects from a barefoot horse. Their hoof walls are cracked and ragged—a likewise healthy, if unsightly state. The mud’s long dried out now, packed into the body of the soles, so it only takes one flip of his hoofpick on each hoof for a whole cake of dirt to come loose in a single piece. The front left one, though, has a small rock lodged in the cleft of its frog, which is a bit more work to dig out. 

Satisfied with Tony’s work, the creature stands aside to let Tony pass. Tony hands over an apple and, in answer, is nudged toward one of the pathways ahead. The way from there is much the same as before, if perhaps less winding. The rounded walls of the passage glisten with moisture and pulse gently, and slope distinctly downward. 

After some ways, the path straightens, and soon Tony sees a figure standing further ahead. As he approaches, he finds that they're standing in front of a barred gate. Where the iron rods are lodged in, the walls are swollen and red, like infected flesh trying to grow around a bullet. 

The gatekeeper might once have been a man, though he just as well may have started as an antler shed by a mule deer in the winter. Overlong limbs with too many knees and elbows pointing in too many directions taper off and multiply, arms and legs giving way to branches to twigs, too delicate to support weight but doing so nonetheless. If he had a spine once, or eyes, or a mouth, or a head of hair, they are gone now, pounded like bruised clay into a paste of smooth, curving flesh. 

“Good evening,” Tony says when he is scant feet away from the figure. “Might I ask you to open that gate and let me through?” 

The gatekeeper’s featureless face caves in near the bottom, creating something that is not recognizable as a mouth, but a concave curve that can form words. The curve smiles and says, “Good evenin’ to you, Mister Stark.” The gatekeeper's voice is warped like the sound played on a wax cylinder that’s been left too long near the fire. “I’ll happily letcha by, if you best me in a contest.” 

“What sorta contest?” 

“Your pick.” 

Tony’s got plenty in his pack that could be used as a weapon, but he’d prefer not to fight if he doesn’t have to. Plus, he’d rather save that fuel for later. “Riddles. Best of three.” 

“Riddles, then,” the gatekeeper says. He clears his throat—or whatever he has. It sounds like a mechanical bull with a penny stuck in the gears. “Outta the eater came sumthin’ to eat, and outta the strong came sumthin’ sweet.” 

“Honey bees makin’ a hive in the carcass of a lion,” Tony replies after a moment. At the gatekeeper’s nod, he goes on, “What type of bird would be reckoned to lift the heaviest weight?”

The almost-mouth turns up into an almost-smile. “A crane. If you like feathered folks, how’s this: who’s killed the greatest number of chickens?” 

For all his wit, Tony’s stumped. He stalls, wracking his brain, before giving up. “Who, then?” 

“Claudius.” 

Damn. A _murder most foul_. The tutors who taught him Shakespeare would weep. “What’s the circumstance of life that if you take all trouble there, there’ll remain some still?” 

This, to Tony’s great relief, seems to baffle his opponent. Furrows form at the top of the gatekeeper’s head, as if he’s frowning absent eyebrows. “Well, what is it?” he asks at last. 

“Troublesome.” 

The gatekeeper makes a wet, back-of-the-throat sort of growl. “I’ve heard of sumthin’, growin’ in its nook, swellin’ and risin’, pushin’ up its covering. Upon that boneless thing a cocky-minded young maid took a grip with her hands, an’ with her apron a lord’s daughter covered the tumescent thing.” 

At first, Tony can only think of lewd or grotesque replies, which suggests to him that the correct answer is neither. The swelling and rising of the walls around him are of no help, nor the fact that he and his adversary are tied and he doesn't know where a wrong answer will lead him. Finally, he thinks of meals at Victor’s grand dining table, and smiles. “Dough,” he says triumphantly. 

“What’s your last riddle, then, Stark?” 

Tony runs through the riddles he knows by heart, and chooses a question best answered by an engineer. “You've got three sacks, all the same size. One is full up with coffee beans. How do you fill the other two by emptying that one?”

This puzzles the gatekeeper to the point that he twists his waist like he’s wringing dry a wet rag, his head rolling so far to one wasted shoulder it should mean a broken neck. A single human eye surfaces onto the smooth expanse of his head like oil floating to the top of a bowl of batter. The eye is pointed at Tony, perhaps looking for clues or signs of deception on his person. 

“I dunno,” the gatekeeper says at last. 

“You put one of the empty bags inside the other, then fill it with what's in the other bag.” 

The gatekeeper laughs, and though it is a laugh that slithers up Tony’s spine in a prickle, it is a joyful one. He tosses his head like a dog shaking water from its coat. “Shoulda known,” he says. He skitters to one side on thin, branching limbs and heaves the gate open. “Off you go then, Mister Stark.” 

* * *

It’s hours past suppertime, if Tony’s belly is any guide, though the contents of his pack seem none too appetizing and he doesn’t think he’d keep down even the finest of fare if he ate it in this place. The corridors beyond the gate throb with the same uncanny pulse and corkscrew down in the same dim spiral, but the further he goes, the higher the temperature and humidity rise. He slaps at a mosquito on reflex, and isn’t surprised to hear its brethren buzzing in his ears. 

The bugs are practically swarming when he turns a bend and finds not another pulsing pink pathway as he expected but an open plain of sun-yellowed grasses and white flowers. A river cuts across the whole horizon, reflecting a dark, moonless sky—though Tony’s sure the last time he was out at night, on the balcony of his rooms in Doom Manor not a full day ago, the moon had been waxing gibbous. 

The soil is soft and muddy under his boots, his heels sinking in with each step. His way toward the river is accompanied by the drone and bites of mosquitos, who are out in numbers to rival the stars above. 

When he’s so far from the passage he exited that it’s no longer visible in the distance, a pale sun is rising behind him. It’s nearly past the horizon when he reaches the edge of the river. It’s wide, wider than the Mississippi in Louisiana. The surface is spotted with scrubby, sand-colored grasses and arsenic-green algae. Some ways to Tony’s left is a punt barely big enough for four, a tall, solitary figure standing in it with a still-taller pole pushed into the water. The boat is smack in the middle between the two shores. The boatman is wrapped in a ragged white cloth that can only be described as a shroud, and looking at him fills Tony's head with a screech and clatter louder than a steam engine. 

Hoping to avoid the ferryman, Tony takes a tentative step into the water, as much on a spot of grassy earth as he can manage. As he hoped, it gives a little but holds firm. He brings his second foot down beside the first, regains his balance, and reaches for the closest solid patch in front of him. 

Striding from one mound of earth to the next is slow going, and he loses his footing more than once. The river water is more mud than liquid, his boots sinking inches with each moment he stands there, his trousers soaked through with muck up past his knees. Each time he stumbles into the water, the agitation floods the air with the mossy, smoky smell of peat. He tries not to think of Scotch whisky. 

Dragonflies and damselflies join the mosquitos, their lacy fairy-wings beating the air in tandem, bodies a plump, poisonous-looking red. He pulls his boot out of the mud with a squelch and sees that a dragonfly the size of his fist has landed on his shoulder. 

The next time he slips into the water, he dislodges a buried log. Except it floats to the surface and it’s not a log, but a human body, bleached white as a dead elm. Tony recoils and falls. He catches himself before he lands ass-first in the mud. Forcing a deep breath of the dank, peaty air, he continues on. 

There’s a dragonfly on his head and two damselflies on one arm. Their wings flutter and tickle through his clothes. A bone-white hand bobs out the mud near one boot. Another step. Wet grass brushes slippery tendrils over one knee. His other is entangled in long strands of hair from the floating body of a redheaded woman in a chiffon dress. He walks on. Another damselfly alights by one ear. The next body skimming the surface of the mud wears a Union uniform. 

Tony trudges onward, propelled by the reaching, rigid hands of the dead. He passes another man in Union blues, a man with a noose still around his neck, a woman with amber brown eyes and handprints on her throat, and a man in a Confederate uniform. He wonders how many of the soldiers he’s pushing through like brambles are riddled with rounds from Stark Repeating Rifles. 

The mud thickens. His clothes grow heavy with it. His trousers turn green with algae. The sun is fat and bright behind him, casting his shadow black as pitch over the murk before him. A mosquito bites him behind one ear. Water seeps through the leather of his boots and into the wool of his socks. His soles are sucked into the mire with each footfall. He pulls them out with sickening, sloshing sounds. Something splinters underfoot; he thinks it’s the bones of a human hand. 

He’s almost to the opposite shore. There’s a mosquito bite in the fold between two of his fingers, and several more on his knuckles. The mud-streaked faces of the dead stare up at him. If he fell face-first into the water with his next step, he’d be able to touch the shore with the tips of his fingers. He wonders what he’ll do when he’s standing solid ground again. If he’ll be able to find enough fuel to build a fire. If he’ll wake in a blanket of mosquitos and dragonflies. If he’ll wake buried in mud, staring up through rushing water to the sky above. If he’ll wake up at all. 

Then he sees Steve. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics I’ve included of “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” are adapted from several different recorded versions. In the folk tradition, I’ve rearranged some lines and changed some bits here and there. I’ve mostly pulled from [Tim Eriksen’s version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOyAeJX21Vo). (Tim Eriksen has a particular way of singing that is intentionally very droning. I like it, but it’s not for everyone.) 
> 
> I didn’t write these riddles. And I think Tony’s last one is more of a logic puzzle. But his opponent accepted it, and I think that’s what counts. 
> 
> **Tipple** – Drink of liquor (also a verb)  
>  **Bibliophage** \- A real word which means an ardent reader of bookworm, though in this case I’ve used “bibliophagic” poetically to suggest eating a book with a fork and knife  
>  **Tranklements** – Entrails, intestines  
> The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show started in 1877 in our timeline. Guess it’s different on Earth-51920.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s mud in Steve’s lungs. There’s mud in his nose and ears and soaked into his clothes and all over his skin. He’s crouched over, mud underneath him, knees sinking further with each mud-filled breath. He coughs, and what comes out is mud, too. 

A hand wipes mud from his eyes. “Steve?” 

The hand disappears, and he tries to blink his eyes clear. An arm wraps around his back, pulling him close. A distant part of him notices that it’s trembling. 

“Steve?” the voice says again, and it’s a voice Steve knows. 

“Tony,” he says, or tries to say, but he thinks maybe all that comes out is more mud. 

Together they get most of the mud off his face, and then Steve can breathe again without feeling like he’s inhaling and exhaling wet soil. “You got my message?” he asks faintly, pressing himself into Tony. 

“Message?”

“They said you’d get it,” Steve insists. “That it’d be your vision of the future.” 

“Yes,” Tony says, sounding like he’s the one who’s swallowed a river of mud. “I got your message.” 

“Good. Good.” 

“Thank you for sending it.” 

Steve wraps his arms around Tony’s waist and nods into Tony’s chest. 

“Here.” 

Steve sits up and looks. A familiar flask is held out before him. 

“It’s water,” Tony tells him hoarsely, as if he knows what Steve’d been thinking. 

Steve takes Tony into his arms and kisses him soundly. 

* * *

He’s gotten Tony’s face all muddy, though tracks of tears have washed it off in crooked lines, like the lines of riverbeds on a map. “Been wantin’ to do that.” 

“Me too," Tony says, a look on his face like he knows why Steve never did. 

Steve finally takes the flask from Tony’s hand. “It ain’t from this river, is it?” 

A near-laugh bursts out of Tony with a sound like a bomb detonating. “No, it’s from the Kirby.” 

The water is a little sandy, and Steve thinks he can taste the desert sun. It’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever put in his body. “Y’know the way outta here?” 

“More or less,” Tony says with a grimace. “I’m afraid I left a bit of a shambles back home.” 

Steve pushes himself to his feet. “Good thing you’ve got me, then.” 

* * *

A man wrapped in white cloth pulls up to the shore in a small punt. Its sides are painted by algae in a noxious green like the soup Bruce’s been cooking up. The man beckons them, and, with a glance at Tony, Steve climbs into the boat. Tony follows. The boatman lifts his pole and ferries them across the river in silence. 

Steve’s sure the ferryman is someone he knows, someone from town, maybe, who he’s walked past every day for years. He’s also sure he’s never met the man before. 

More mud greets them on the other side, though this at least is solid enough to stand on. “Yarrow,” Steve says. 

“Whassat?” 

“The flowers.” He bends down and plucks a stalk. Several little stems branch from it, each with a cluster of small white blossoms. A dragonfly lands on it. Steve waves the insect off and lifts the flower to his nose. It smells like grass seeds, chrysanthemums, and white sugar. He offers it to Tony. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Tony leans in and sniffs it too. “Better than all that peat.” 

“D’y’know the song?” 

“Don’t think I do.” 

“S’alright, for a Scottish song.” 

Tony laughs like wind-chimes. 

Steve’s voice sounds like someone forgot to grease the wagon at the best of times, but he sings anyway. 

_Oh sister dear, I’ll read your dream  
_ _Read in it grief and sorrow  
_ _Your true-love he lies dead and gone  
_ _Drowned in the dowie dens o’ Yarrow_

* * *

The crux of what Steve will remember about the journey that follows is that it is entirely uphill. 

The mosquitos follow them out of the mud. Eventually the bugs taper off; the heat and humidity don't. There’s a man, or something like one, at a gate, which he opens to let them by. Some ways later there’s a creature that isn’t quite a horse, though trying to figure out what makes it so clearly not a horse sets him on edge. Tony gives it a bouquet of yarrow, which it eats with enthusiasm. 

They stop for short rests and drinks of water, and then a longer one for some bread and apples. Tony budges over so they’re sitting pressed close. When he finishes eating he rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve wraps an arm around him and gives him a peck on the top of his head—because it’s nearby, and also the least muddy part of him. Tony wriggles closer, until they’re close as cat’s breath. “Guess I’m not gettin’ the mitten when we’re topside,” Steve says. 

“You're never gettin’ rid of me now, Rogers,” Tony says. 

Steve likes the sound of that. 

They sit like that longer than they need to. Eventually they get to their feet and set off again. Tony tells Steve some of the news from town he’s missed, and how Tony’s about to hornswoggle Victor von Doom—and has already pulled one over on Mister Wong, as well. It doesn’t much surprise Steve that all their trudging and climbing is toward a fight, nor that those three strangers are something unearthly. 

They pass a sleeping three-headed dog, which Tony tells him is the last landmark before they’re due to climb back up to the silver mines. They wind the rest of their way up, until there’s sunlight spilling out around the next bend. 

“How long since you first came down here?” 

After a moment’s consideration, Tony says, “A day and a half, at least. If we’re lucky, Victor, Wormseed, and his compatriots will have long since taken care of each other.” 

“Think we’re gonna be lucky?” 

“Are we ever?”

Steve chuckles. “Seldom, but this time we can be ready. You heeled, Stark?” 

“Better than,” Tony says, reaching into his pack and pulling out Steve’s dragoon revolver.

“You said you’d die before you picked up a gun again.” 

“I say a lot of things, most of all when I’m flushed,” Tony says, snappish and defensive. 

“Didn’t strike me as sumthin’ you didn’t mean.” 

Tony looks chagrined rubs at the back of his neck and looks over at the wall. “Close enough,” he says at last. 

Steve drags him by the shoulder until he’s near enough to kiss. Which Steve does, a good long one, like a lady’s supposed to give her spark before he goes to war. Tony goes boneless and falls against him, mouth soft and sweet. 

“A fella could get used to that,” Tony says breathlessly. 

Steve’s hand is still in Tony’s hair, the other wrapped around the small of his back. He pulls away with reluctance, a fond smile on his face. “What’re you packin’, then?” 

Tony grins. 

* * *

The smell of putrid meat dissipates the further they walk from the hellmouth, though Steve can still feel its hot breath on his back. 

The thing is, the scene is just as Tony described leaving it: the angle of the sun in the sky; Wormseed and his men still smoldering, their suits pristine beneath licks of flame; the smoke climbing to the heavens from them; the surge and shrinking of the ground, Doom standing at the center. 

Their reemergence has been spotted. Mugwort and Slovenwood are pointed their way, looking mad enough to swallow a horned toad backwards. Steve aims his gun at Mugwort, who’s closest; Tony ignites his gauntlet and blasts a wall of fire across the ground separating himself and Steve from everyone else. Mugwort reels back before righting himself and regarding the fire with disdain. 

“Stark!” Doom yells. 

“It’s done!” Tony hollers back. 

The earth shudders a final time, a colossal heave accompanied by a clatter and rumble loud enough to be heard at the mouth of the Mississippi. Mugwort stumbles and Slovenwood falls, catching himself on his elbows and knees. 

A voice without sound murmurs at the edges of Steve’s mind, like catching movement out of the corner of his eye. The voice is yearning. It wants to be free. It wants to help. 

_I don’t want your help_ , Steve tells it. Still, the hiss lingers, making promises and spinning tales. 

Doom speaks in a droning language that feels like footsteps over Steve’s grave, the sound carried by the wind alongside ash and sand. 

“You’ve taken what’s mine!” Wormseed declares. He begins chanting infernal words of his own. Barely a few syllables in, he’s cut off by a monstrous clack, like a dog’s jaws snapping shut after a yawn. 

Steve looks back and sees the hellmouth is shut, the eyes above it falling closed as it sinks beneath the sand. 

“No!” Wormseed screeches. 

Beside him, Tony closes his eyes and says in a quiet voice, “Sorry, Victor. Sort of.” In the space between blinks, his empty hands come to clasp a leather-bound book. 

Steve also notices that the silent voice has evaporated from his mind, quick as green grass through a goose. 

“Don’t—” he begins to say, but Tony’s already opened it. 

* * *

Doom is raising Cain with his yelling and cursing—some of the cursing literal, Steve thinks. Apparently no longer considering Doom a threat, Wormseed turns his full attention to Tony, and begins reciting words Steve doesn’t like the sound of. 

He needn’t worry, as it turns out: Tony’s cantillating something of his own, and whatever he’s saying, it’s lifting him off his feet until he’s floating four feet off the ground like a duck on water. His eyes have become polished steel, unblinking and luminous. Tony’s chanting hasn’t let up, though Wormseed’s has—the breath’s sucked right out of him like juice from a lemon. 

Something is rising out of the sand. At first Steve thinks it’s a trick of the sun, but it turns from vapor to shadow-gray tendrils of smoke, and then into trickling tributaries and running rivulets like liquid mercury. Whatever Tony’s doing, it’s pulling the vein of silver out of the mines, molten and liquid, up through the earth. 

What follows is pandemonium. Steve thinks his brains have turned to tree sap trying to twig what’s happening. 

By the end of it, Steve’s gotten a fair few rounds off, though Mugwort reacts to them like he’s been bitten by a particularly large horsefly, Slovenwood grimaces and plucks them out of his flesh like splinters, Wormseed doesn’t seem to even feel them, and Doom’s armor serves to protect him from everything but a single shot through his shoulder. 

More importantly, Wormseed, Mugwort, and Slovenwood are gone; Tony’s liquid silver and arcane words have twisted and unmade them into nothing but crimson sand that spills into the desert like blooms of a claret cup cactus. Doom's been knocked to the ground, slowly pushing himself upright as if it pains him. The ground is strewn with strands of metal like ocean waves frozen solid and made miniature. 

Steve pants and turns to Tony, who hovers beside him, eyes gray and dark, the color of clouds swollen with rain and thunder. His veins bulge out of his flesh in lines of silver. The metal breaches his skin most densely on his face, splitting into craggy branches from the corners of his eyes. 

He gives no sign of seeing Steve as he steps closer. It’s like walking into a windstorm, tousling his hair and clothes and swirling into an almost solid barrier around Tony’s body. Almost. 

Steve reaches out and tugs the closed book out from Tony’s hands. 

The moment it’s out of his grasp, Tony slumps and falls. Steve catches him in his arms before he can hit the ground, dropping the book as he does. The book can go to hell for all he cares. 

Tony blinks with eyes that are hazy but all his own. The silver on his skin recedes like a tide going out. He flexes one hand, watching it as if he doesn’t recognize it as his own. When his gaze lands on Steve, his face softens. “Steve,” he says. 

“Are you—” 

Steve’s question is cut off by Tony convulsing, clutching a hand to his heart with a cry. 

* * *

Steve wants to yell Tony’s name until he’s hoarse. Instead he holds Tony in his arms, counting each breath he takes. 

He almost doesn't hear Doom's careful footsteps across the sand. He manages to snatch the book from the ground before he reaches them. When he does, Doom stands over them, observing through his unreadable mask. 

When he gets breath to speak, Tony says, “It. The book. My heart.” 

The soundless voice tells Steve how it could fix him. But he need only look at Tony for evidence as to what the price for that might be.

“What’ve I gotta do?” Steve asks. “How can I help?”

Smiling weakly, Tony lifts the arm armored by his gauntlet. “Needs more power.” Then unconsciousness takes him. 

* * *

Doom crouches down beside them. Steve tenses. 

"I can assist you," Doom says, almost gently. 

"I'm guessin' you want the book in return." 

Doom considers him. "I would certainly like to possess it once more, but no, I require nothing in return for my assistance. I'll soon have all that I came here for." 

"Why should I trust you?" 

"I suppose you cannot. Do you have an alternative?" 

Tony is dying. "Guess I don't," Steve says. 

With a sharp nod, Doom removes his own gauntlets and examines Tony's. Together, Steve guided by Doom's instructions, they cobble together the wires and magnets and deconstructed metal casing into a device that they strap to Tony’s chest and plug straight into his skin. 

No sooner has copper met flesh than all the tension and pain contorting Tony’s body spills out of him. The strong, steady breaths he takes are the best thing Steve’s ever heard. 

Doom stands and replaces the armor on his hands. Without a word he strides to where Wormseed, Mugwort, and Slovenwood were. He removes a glass vial from his robes and carefully fills it with the red sand they left behind. 

He gets back to his feet and nods toward Steve and Tony. "Farewell. I haven't forgotten Stark's betrayal. I am interested to see how he might make it up to me." 

* * *

Tony is slow to regain full consciousness. The first thing he says is, "I think I hate magic." He's smiling though.

Steve smiles back. "Damned effective, though." 

"Can't complain much about the results," Tony agrees. 

The device is warm and buzzing under Steve's fingers. "I can," Steve says, and Tony's smile turns knowing and rueful.

"I'm alright." 

"Better be." He helps Tony back into his shirt and waistcoat. Tying his cravat turns into a kiss, long and leisurely, and already familiar and comfortable. Steve considers it just about the perfect way to spend the time until Tony's well enough to walk back to town. 

It's nigh unto sundown and Tony's just about pertend up when Red Wolf, Luke Cage, Missus Barnes, and Wong ride up, Apple cantering alongside them. 

Wong is first to reach them. He dismounts with a disdainful look on his face and snatches up the book from where Steve's let it fall. “You ever listen to anyone other than yourself, Stark?” he asks, climbing back into the saddle. 

“On occasion,” Tony says, just as Steve says, “Never.” 

Tony glares. Steve smiles back. 

A huff from Wong makes Steve turn. “Where you takin’ that thing?” 

“I have a friend in New York,” Wong replies. He doesn’t sound happy about it. “He’ll be able to hide it. Keep it safe.” With that, he kicks his mount into motion and is off. 

“What happened?” Red Wolf asks when he and the others arrive. His face when his eyes land on Steve is nearly comical. “Rogers?” He shakes his head. “Wong said, but I thought maybe he’d been putting the wrong kind of plants in his pipe.” 

“Is that silver?” Natasha says. 

The only one to ask, “Are you alright?” is Cage. 

“I tell ya what,” Steve begins, “Y’all pack up what’s left. Tony and I’ve had quite a time of it, and Tony’s nearly had the life sucked outta him. I’m gonna take him back to his forge so I can look after him. When he’s well and rested, we’ll tell you everythin’ you wanna know.” With that, he gets to his feet. He offers a hand and pulls Tony up with him. 

They’re halfway to Apple when Red Wolf says, “What'll we do with the silver? We're not sending it along to Governor Roxxon.” 

“Not even when the crawfish whistles on the mountain,” Natasha replies, already lifting up a chunk of silver to give it a good look. 

“So who gets it?" Red Wolf asks. 

“You tell me,” Steve answers, helping Tony onto Apple’s back. “You’re sheriff now, ain’t ya?” 

“That's right. You can be my deputy,” Red Wolf says with a wry smile. 

Steve’s already got his feet in the stirrups and started toward town. “Star looks good on you,” he calls over his shoulder. 

It feels good to have Tony’s arms around him, nestled against his back. “I’ll make you a new one,” Tony vows as they canter off. “A bigger, brighter star. Bulletproof.” 

"Can you promise me sumthin' else?"

"Wassat?" 

"Let me put you to bed and promise me you'll get some rest and eat a proper meal."

"Hmm," Tony says with exaggerated slowness, like he's weighing his options. "You'll probably have to stick around to make sure I hold up my end of the bargain."

"Probably so." 

"Gonna make it worth my while?" 

Steve grins and rides into the setting sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Yarrow" is an old Scottish folk song. "Dowie" is a rendering of "dewy." "Dens" is a Scots word meaning "A narrow valley or ravine, usually wooded." Most versions of the song do mention drowning, suggesting that there's a creek or river in these dowie dens. 
> 
> How did Apple get to town to ride out with everyone to the mines, when last we saw her she was at Doom Manor? Um, _hello_ , Wong was right there. I told you from the start: a wizard did it. 
> 
> If you aren’t familiar with canon, here’s the rest of the ending. There are hints that Bruce has become the Hulk, and that a spider with some kind of gamma powers is lurking around town (no doubt heading for the Parker homestead). Deadpool and Punisher show up to avenge Steve (the newspaper said that the Sinister Six, who in this world are bank robbers, were responsible for his death). Governor Roxxon sends a guy implied to be Red Skull to take over for Fisk. Carol is voted mayor. Red Wolf, Natasha, and Luke enforce freedom and justice.
> 
> I am a comment-consuming lich. Please consider leaving a comment and feeding my lifeforce.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Tom Waits song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V-sKVGDEiU) from which I took the title of this story.
> 
> If you liked this piece, please consider reblogging the [tumblr post](https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/post/190310368329/everything-goes-to-hell-anyway-chapter-1) for this fic! 
> 
> Also check out my [tumblr](https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/), where I post writing updates, writing snippets, occasional random updates about my life (usually related to my dog), lots of Steve/Tony reblogs, an increasing amount of Will/Hannibal reblogs, gifs of crows hopping, and photos of gothic cathedrals.


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